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If you are mining Bitcoin, you do not need to figure the total value of the 64-digit number (the hash). I repeat: You do not need to figure the entire value of a hash.

Remember that ELI5 analogy, where I wrote the number 19 on a piece of newspaper and put it in a sealed envelope

In Bitcoin mining conditions, that metaphorical undisclosed number in the envelope is known as the target hash.

What miners are doing with these tremendous computers and dozens of cooling fans is guessing in the target hash. Miners create these guesses by randomly generating as many"nonces" as possible, as quickly as possible. A nonce is short for"number only used once," and the nonce is the secret to generating these 64-bit hexadecimal numbers I keep talking about.

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The primary miner whose nonce generates a hash that is less than or equivalent to the target hash is awarded credit for completing that block, and is awarded the spoils of 12.5 BTC. .

In theory you can Attain the same goal by rolling a 16-sided expire 64 days to Reach random numbers, but why on earth would you want to do this

The screenshot below, taken by the website Blockchain.info, might help you put all this information together at a glance. You are looking at a summary of everything that happened when obstruct 490163 was mined. The nonce that generated the "winning" hash was 731511405. The goal hash is shown on top.

As you see here, their contribution to the Bitcoin community is they confirmed 1768 transactions for this block. If you really want to find all 1768 of these transactions for this block, go to this page and scroll down to the heading"Transactions." .

There is no minimum target, but there is a maximum goal determined by the Bitcoin Protocol. No goal can be greater than this number:

Here are some examples of randomized hashes and the criteria his comment is here for whether they will lead to success for the miner:

You'd have to find a fast mining rig or, more realistically, join a mining pool--a group of miners that combine their computing ability and split the mined bitcoin. Mining pools are comparable to those Powerball clubs whose members buy lottery tickets en masse and agree to discuss any winnings. you could look here A disproportionately high number of cubes are mined by pools rather than by individual miners. .

In other words, it is literally just a numbers game.  You cannot imagine the pattern or make a prediction based on preceding target hashes. The difficulty level of the most recent block at the time of writing is 2,874,674,234,416, i.e. the chance of any given nonce producing a hash below the goal is 1 in 2,874,674,234,416--less than 1 in two trillion. .

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The aforementioned site Cryptocompare delivers a helpful calculator that allows you to plug in numbers such as your hash speed, electricity costs etc. to estimate the costs and benefits.

Mining rewards are paid to the miner who discovers a solution to the puzzle , and also the probability that a participant will be the one to discover the solution is equal to the portion of the total mining power on the network.  Participants with a small percentage of the mining capability stand a tiny chance of discovering the next block on their own.  For instance, a mining card that one could buy to get a few thousand bucks would represent less than 0.001percent of their network's mining power.  With such a small chance at finding the next block, it could be a long time before that miner finds out a block, and also the problem going up makes things even worse.  The miner may never recoup their investment.  The answer to this problem is mining pools.  Mining pools are operated by third parties and coordinate groups of miners.  By working together in a pool and sharing the payouts amongst participants, miners can get a steady flow of bitcoin starting the afternoon that they activate their miner.  Statistics on some of the mining pools can be seen on Blockchain.info. .

Sure. As mentioned, the simplest way to get Bitcoin is to purchase it on an exchange like Coinbase.com. Alternately, you can consistently leverage the"pickaxe plan". This relies on the old saw that during the 1848 California gold rush, the wise investment was not to pan for gold, but instead to create the pickaxes used for mining.

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In a crypto context, the pickaxe equivalent would be a company that manufactures equpiment utilized for Bitcoin mining. You can start looking into companies that make ASICs miners or GPU miners. .